INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Jewishness & the A rts:
Music and C omposers in 19 th-C entury Europe
Rome, Accademia Filarmonia Romana
13-15 October 2015
Organized by
Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini and Palazzetto Bru Zane
in collaboration with Ad Parnassum Journal
under the auspices of
Presidenza Assemblea Capitolina and Comunità Ebraica di Roma
ORGANIZED BY
in collaboration with
under the Auspices of
C e n t ro S t u di O pe r a O m n i a L u igi B occ h e r i n i
w w w.luigiboccherini.org
Music and
Jewishness & the A rts:
C omposers in 19 th-C entury Europe
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Rome, Accademia Filarmonia Romana
13-15 October 2015
Organized by
Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca
Palazzetto Bru Zane - Centre de musique romantique française, Venice
in collaboration with
Ad Parnassum Journal
under the auspices of
Presidenza Assemblea Capitolina
Comunità Ebraica di Roma
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Advisory Board
Bella Brover-Lubovsky (Hebrew University, Israel)
Luiz Guilherme Goldberg (Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Brazil)
Jehoash Hirshberg (Hebrew University, Israel)
Étienne Jardin (Palazzetto Bru Zane, Venice)
Tony Levy (CNRS-Université Paris 7)
Luca Lévi Sala (Yale University – Conference Director)
Patrizia Veroli (Italian Association for Research in Dance, Rome)
Conference Committee
Simone Ciolfi (St. Mary’s College, Rome – Notre Dame, IN)
Roberto Illiano (Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca)
Fulvia Morabito (Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca)
Keynote Speaker
Jehoash Hirshberg (Hebrew University, Israel)
TUESDAY 13 OCTOBER
10.00-10.30: Welcome and Registration
10.30-11.00: Opening
• Welcome address
• Roberto Illiano (Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini)
• Étienne Jardin (Palazzetto Bru Zane, Venice)
• Luca Lévi Sala (Yale University – Conference Director)
11.00-13.00: Dissemination & Collective Representations 1
(Chair: Luiz Guilherme Goldberg, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Brazil)
• Ivana Gortan-Carlin (Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, Croatia, Dpt. of Educational
Sciences): La produzione musicale dei compositori ebraici sul territorio della regione
istriana nel xix secolo
• Mia Kuritzén Löwengart (Uppsala University, Department of History): Jewish
Contribution to the Development of Stockholm’s Public Concert Life
• Henri Vanhulst (Université libre de Bruxelles/Académie royale de Belgique): Deux parcours
de compositeurs contrastés : Abraham (Adolphe) Samuel et son fils Eugène
• César Leal (Sewanee: The University of the South, TN): Sponsoring and Constructing
Modernism: Jewish Patronage, Entrepreneurs, and Cultural Mediation in Paris during
«Fin-de-siècle»
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13.10 Lunch
15.00-16.00 – Keynote Speaker 1
• Jehoash Hirshberg (Hebrew University, Jerusalem): The Jew on the Romantic Opera Stage
16.15-18.15: Dissemination & Collective Representations 2
(Chair: Patrizia Veroli, Italian Association for Research in Dance, Rome)
• Danielle Padley (University of Cambridge) – Susan Wollenberg (University of Oxford):
Charles Garland Verrinder, First Ever Synagogue Organist in Britain
• Jeroen van Gessel (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen): The Fruitless Quest for Recognition of the
Jewish Composer Aaron Wolf Berlijn (1817-1870)
• Richard Erkens (Istituto Storico Germanico, Rome/Associazione per il musicista Alberto
Franchetti, Reggio Emilia): Compositore, personalità eminente, ebreo. Influssi culturali
ebraici sulla carriera artistica di Alberto Franchetti
• Daniela Iotti (Istituto di alta formazione musicale Conservatorio ‘Claudio Monteverdi’,
Bolzano/Associazione per il musicista Alberto Franchetti, Reggio Emilia): Una lunga
dinastia musicale dai Rothschild ai Franchetti
WEDNESDAY 14 OCTOBER
9.30-11.00: Jewishness & Politics 1: Opera and Jewish Themes
(Chair: Jehoash Hirshberg, Hebrew University, Jerusalem)
• Jesse Rosenberg (Northwestern University, IL): Samuele Levi’s «Giuditta» (1844): Jewish
Heroine or Figure of the «Risorgimento»? Notes on the Philo-Judaic Moment of 19thCentury Italian Opera
• Diana R. Hallman (University of Kentucky, KY): Fromental Halévy and the “Jewish
Question” at the Paris Opéra
• Rachel Orzech (Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne/
University of Rouen): Hearing Jewishness? The Parisian reception of Halévy’s «La Juive»
11.30-13.00: Jewishness & Politics 2: Heritage and Identity
(Chair: Luca Lévi Sala, Yale University)
• Marsha Dubrow (The Graduate Center, City University of New York, NY): Conversion as
a Professional Success Strategy: The Case of Ignaz Moscheles
• Benjamin Wolf (Regent’s University, London): Lewandowski as a Man of His Times
• Golan Gur (University of Cambridge): «Die alten Gesänge im Geiste unserer Zeit»: Sulzer,
Lewandowski and the Politics of Assimilation in Jewish Liturgical Music
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13.15 Lunch
15.30-16.30: Jewish Cultural Heritage and the Reform 1
(Chair: Bella Brover-Lubovsky, Hebrew University, Israel)
• Tamara Jurkić Sviben (University of Zagreb, Croatia, Faculty of Teacher Education):
Reverberations of Reform Jewish Service in Synagogue Music of Northern Croatia on the
End of the 19th Century and First Part of the 20th Century
• Alon Schab (University of Haifa, Israel) – David Rees (Munich Synagogue Choir): The
Sulzerian Reform and the Recently Rediscovered ‘Israeliten’ Manuscript
17.00-18.00: Jewish Cultural Heritage and the Reform 2
(Chair: Roberto Illiano, Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca)
• Yuval Rabin (Hebrew University, Jerusalem): Hermann Zvi Bermann – A Combination of
Functional Synagogue-Music, and High Artistic Aim
• Mark Kligman (UCLA – University of California, Los Angeles, CA): Isaac Offenbach:
Cantorial Artistry in the Early 19th Century
THURSDAY 15 OCTOBER
10.00-11.30: Heritage & Cross-cultural Models: Theory and Reception
(Chair: Fulvia Morabito, Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca)
• Steven J. Cahn (University of Cincinnati, OH, College-Conservatory of Music): Harmonic
Practice in Salomon Jadassohn’s Jewish Choral Music
• Caroline Helton (University of Michigan, MI, School of Music, Theatre & Dance):
Intersection and Inspiration: Johannes Brahms and His Influence on the Jewish Composers
Robert Kahn and Leone Sinigaglia
• Paolo Giorgi (Biblioteca Panizzi, Reggio Emilia/Associazione per il musicista Alberto
Franchetti, Reggio Emilia): Intrecci giudaico-cristiani nei libretti per opera del secondo
Ottocento: il caso di Reggio Emilia
12.00-13.00: Heritage & Cross-cultural Models: About Gustav Mahler
(Chair: Simone Ciolfi, St. Mary’s College, Rome – Notre Dame, IN)
• Rina Altaras (ITÜ-MIAM / Istanbul Technical University Center for Advanced Research
in Music): The Inherited Sacred Value of a Tradition: A Kabbalistic Approach to Mahler’s
Second Symphony «Auferstehen»
• Maria Christofi (Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture): Mahler’s Crisis of Identity:
Blaming the Jewish Tradition or the “Psychopathology” of the Convert
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13.15 Lunch
15.00-16.00: Heritage & Cross-cultural Models: About Felix Mendelssohn
(Chair: Étienne Jardin, Palazzetto Bru Zane, Venice)
• Maria Teresa Arfini (Università della Valle d’Aosta): L’eredità religiosa di Mendelssohn e il
suo approccio alla musica sacra
• Siegwart Reichwald (Converse College, SC): The Gospel According to Mendelssohn:
Spiritual Meaning and Liturgical Function in Mendelssohn’s «Three Motets», Op. 39
Abstracts
Keynote Speaker
Jehoash Hirshberg (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)
The Jew on the Romantic Opera Stage
Among the many appearances of Jews on the Romantic opera stage one should
distinguish between two groups:
1. Operas in which Jews (mostly as groups) stand for contemporary characters, such as
in Verdi’s Nabucco in which the High Priest Zacaria, the convert Babylonian princes Fenena,
and the Jewish people stand for the Italian freedom fighters.
2. Operas which feature individual Jews. Jewish presence in Jacques Offenbach’s Tales
of Hoffmann (1881) is based on two traditional, negative clichés: the Jewish crooked banker
Elijah who is merely referred to yet effects the turn of events in the Olympia scene, and
Schlemiel – from Idish ‘Shlumiel’, the unlucky one – in the Venetian scene. In his masterpiece
La Juive (1835) Jacques Fromental Halévi (1799-1862) elevated the clichés of the Jewish
merchant and his daughter into a well-rounded, psychologically carved characters.
The paper will focus on Halévi’s penultimate opera, Le Juif errant (1851), a powerful,
five-act Grand opéra, which turns the Christian myth of the sinning Jew into a warm suffering
Jew whose sole concern is for his three descendants, with a secondary plot of their struggle
against the prince and his gang of bandits.
Participants
Rina Altaras (ITÜ-MIAM / Istanbul Technical University Center for Advanced
Research in Music)
The Inherited Sacred Value of a Tradition: A Kabbalistic Approach to Mahler’s
Second Symphony Auferstehen
For Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) his music was nothing but himself: his life, his
philosophy, his faith. Therefore, his output reflects deeply his persona. Mahler, faces with his
Second Symphony Auferstehen (‘Resurrection’) the different eschatological questions of life
and death, the meaning of life and suffering, resurrection. There are different approaches trying
to relate, through Mahler’s self-written poem for the chorale, his religious and philosophical
identity. Born as a Jew, Mahler converted to Christianity in order to be appointed as the
Hofoper Direktor, in 1897, three years after he had composed the second symphony. The
Mahlerian canon, acting very consciously according to the principle of synchronicity and
pointing to similarities, assume that Mahler was deeply influenced by Goethe, Nietzsche,
Lipiner and through Lipiner by Fechner and Christian mysticism. It describes the Christian
God, and does not say anything about the Jewish God. Yet states that Mahler’s God is neither
Christian nor Jewish, which is completely possible since he was beyond any doubt a humanist.
This study aims to pave a new way to look at Mahler’s religious identity and persona by
analyzing the chorale cantata, which addresses the eschatological questions already mentioned
above semantically and musically in its text-music setting from a Kabbalistic point of view.
Since the Kabbalah has very clear answers to the questions of reincarnation, purpose and
meaning of life which are resumed in the concepts of Tikkun and Gilgul.
Maria Teresa Arfini (Università della Valle d’Aosta)
L’eredità religiosa di Mendelssohn e il suo approccio alla musica sacra
Felix Mendelssohn scrisse moltissimi brani di musica sacra, destinati alla liturgia
oppure no. Una cospicua parte di essi sono modellati sulla tradizione protestante: egli
compose per gli uffici liturgici di Lipsia e di Berlino ma soprattutto seguì quello che per
l’intera parabola produttiva fu il suo principale modello, ovvero Johann Sebastian Bach.
Non stupisce dunque che nel catalogo il posto di maggior rilievo spetti alle composizioni
derivate dai corali luterani: le giovanili Choralkantaten e l’oratorio Paulus ne sono esempi
chiarissimi. Altre composizioni invece guardano alla liturgia cattolica: ad esempio il mottetto
Tu es Petrus MWV A4 del 1827 che ricalca le omonime composizioni di Giovanni Pierluigi
da Palestrina e Antonio Lotti; oppure il Lauda Sion Op. 73, composto per la celebrazione
cattolica del seicentesimo anniversario della festività del Corpus Domini (Liegi, 11 giugno
1846). A fronte di alcuni casi di diligente composizione su commissione, come quest’ultimo,
da una panoramica sul repertorio si evince soprattutto un atteggiamento storicistico e una
spiccata propensione all’imitazione stilistica, molto forte nella produzione giovanile anche
per motivi didattici ma pure ben presente nella produzione del compositore maturo. Come si
pose invece Mendelssohn rispetto alla musica delle proprie radici familiari, ovvero quella della
liturgia ebraica? Esiste un carteggio con il direttore del Nuovo Tempio Israelitico di Amburgo,
Maimon Fränkel, tra il novembre del 1843 e l’aprile del 1844 che testimonia la commissione
di una realizzazione musicale del Salmo 24: il brano, se mai fu scritto, al momento è disperso
e non sono note altre composizioni destinate alla liturgia ebraica. Non si deve dimenticare
però che Eric Werner riconobbe nel profilo melodico corrispondente alle parole ‘Der Herr
ging vorüber’ (n. 34 dell’oratorio Elias, ove è descritta la teofania) un’antica melodia liturgica
ebraica, «cantata nelle Sinagoghe tedesche fin dal Quattrocento» per rappresentare «i tredici
attributi divini durante le tre maggiori solennità» (Mendelssohn. La vita e l’opera in una nuova
prospettiva, Milano, Rusconi, 1984, p. 613). Parimenti sono state trovate suggestioni simili ad
esempio nel Salmo 114 per doppio coro e orchestra Op. 51 (1841), il cui testo narra la fuga
del popolo ebraico dall’Egitto. Sia in questa composizione sia soprattutto nell’oratorio Elias
si è visto un tentativo da parte del compositore di conciliare la fede dei suoi avi col professato
cristianesimo protestante. In questo contributo cercherò di valutare le ‘componenti ebraiche’,
comunque esigue, delle composizioni mendelssohniane mediante un confronto con il resto
della sua produzione sacra, alla luce anche delle testimonianze di prima mano del compositore
circa le proprie origini e la propria identità, ora finalmente disponibili in maniera completa.
Steven J. Cahn (University of Cincinnati, OH, College-Conservatory of Music)
Harmonic Practice in Salomon Jadassohn’s Jewish Choral Music
This study of harmonic practice focuses on choral music of Salomon Jadassohn (18311902) some of which is found in the Eduard Birnbaum Collection (Klau Library, Hebrew
Union College, Cincinnati, OH). The paper will argue that Jadassohn, using the codes of
19th-century harmonic practice, evokes concepts of the sacred resonant for Jews who have
command of the ambient culture, yet understand the sacred in Jewish terms. For example,
Jadassohn’s Opus 2 is dedicated to Rabbi Dr. Adolf Jellinek, the foremost Jewish orator of
his time. Such a dedication indicates the compatibility of the harmonic languages of Leipzig
and Weimar with the expression of Jewish text and sensibilities. Jadassohn was exposed to
all the trends and controversies that defined the mid-nineteenth century. This paper will call
attention to novel as well as prosaic harmonic practices and schemata found in Jadassohn’s
settings. Moreover, it will call special attention to a borrowing from Beethoven and a harmonic
relation best known from Wagner to show their enriching effect upon text and their use by
Jadassohn to underline Jewish outlook.
Maria Christofi (Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture)
Mahler’s Crisis of Identity: Blaming the Jewish Tradition or the “Psychopathology”
of the Convert?
The Viennese cultural, social, political and geographical context where Mahler lived
and spent his foremost inspirational and productive years of his life was characterized by a
pandemonium of orgasmic worldviews, theories and arts. This led to the creation of a ‘melting
pot’ of everything, «[and] the motivating idea thought out Europe after ‘Death of God’; the
lack of leading ‘motivating idea’ which could have created an ideology led to the desperation of
the entire cultural life of extremely diversity artistic trends» (The Birth of Viennese Modernism,
p. 4). The loss of power for a leading idea along with the lack of limitations and guiding
principles, provided the foundations for the development of parallel and opposite endeavors
in philosophy and in the arts such as Positivism and Impressionism. The same discord was
present in the social sphere where the questioning of identity influenced the ‘individual’ and
the ‘psychic’ life of people. A climate was created in 19th-century Europe that was partially
driven by the concept of Identity. The people of Vienna tried to understand their identity in
the general political, cultural and geographical context of the Habsburg Empire, when decay
and decadence were the parasite, not only of empires, but also to each individual’s emotions.
This was a time when Anti-Semitism was at its zenith; Catholicism was extensively present,
and nationalism and liberal movements as well as any political, philosophical or cultural
strain, faced their own struggles for existence and meaning. This restiveness for meaning in
their lives and in their existences, for comprehending who they were and what the purpose of
their lives was, influenced mostly the restless minds of the Viennese, especially the sensitive
and not yet formed psyches of the young and impatient to find the secret of Life and Death.
«In the modernism of 1900, the man of reason, as a universal idea, gave ground to a more
unstable and changeable individual, in search of new ways of life, and always afraid of seeing
his individualism engulfed in new kinds of community» (Carl Schorske, p. 298). Mahler as
a converted Jew was caught in the beliefs of two powerful poles, Catholicism and Judaism
resulting in a crisis of Identity and the supplication of his understanding of his own existence.
It is not a surprise that that orgiastic pandemonium of Viennese culture gave birth to Freud’s
Death Drive, as well as to many other psychoanalytical innovative theories of the time such
as hysteria and neurosis. The notions of desire cannot be ignored in the case of the many
converted Jews. Mahler’s desire to convert offer a perspective to understanding particular
aspects of his music, where he used desire as his tool for composing and overcoming his fears
and shaping his beliefs on Life and Death.
Marsha Dubrow (The Graduate Center, City University of New York, NY)
Conversion as a Professional Success Strategy: The Case of Ignaz Moscheles
In the post-emancipation period in Europe in the nineteenth century, when Jews were
given the freedom to maintain their Jewish identity and practice their Jewish religion, and many
did, there was still an inclination on the part of many aspiring artists born Jewish, especially
composers and performing musicians, to take on a Christian identity as a furtherance to their
professional careers. The most examined of these artists, of course, has been Felix Mendelssohn,
grandson of the German Jewish philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn. Nonetheless, there were
many others. Among them was Ignaz Moscheles, the composer-conductor-pianist who hailed
from a Jewish Bohemian family. Moscheles (1794-1870) represents a Jewish musician whose
career spanned much of the nineteenth century and whose concertizing took him to countries
throughout Europe and the British Isles. Arriving in Vienna from Prague in 1808, no doors were
barred to him as a Jewish music student: He studied counterpoint and theory with Albrechtsberger
and composition with Salieri alongside Franz Schubert. He did, however, change his name from
Isaac to Ignaz. During the 1814-1815 Congress of Vienna, he was considered a leading piano
virtuoso there and a close friend of Meyerbeer, still a piano virtuoso at that time, but not yet
a composer. Along with Franz Schubert, Moscheles contributed a small composition to the
festivities surrounding Salieri’s 50th anniversary celebration of teaching students. A practicing
Jew and member of the Jewish congregation in Vienna during that period, Moscheles composed
an oratorio for the Vienna Jewish community celebrating the peace. He also was close with
other Jewish composers and musicians including Mendelssohn, Joachim, Hiller and Rubinstein.
He married a Jew, Charlotte Emden, daughter of a Jewish banker, in the Frankfurt synagogue
in 1825 and maintained close contact with patrons of Jewish background such as the Eskeles
family in Vienna, the Leo family in Paris and the Rothschilds in England. Yet, seven years
following his permanent move to England with his new wife in 1825, he formally converted
to Christianity. In 1832, he and his wife were baptized in a Lutheran Church in London and
his children were all baptized, as well. Concertizing and conducting took him abroad, and as
early as 1824, he accepted an invitation from Felix Mendelssohn’s father to give some lessons
to his son and his daughter Fanny. Felix and Ignaz developed a close and deep friendship that
endured for over two decades until Mendelssohn’s untimely death in 1847. In fact, when
Mendelssohn established a Conservatory at Leipzig in 1843, Moscheles accepted his invitation
to join the faculty, moving his family to Leipzig. He became head after Mendelssohn’s death.
Later in life, Moscheles became Wagner’s bête noire regarding Jews in music staunchly defending
Mendelssohn and other Jewish musical artists vilified by Wagner. My paper will explore the
circumstances under which Moscheles felt compelled to convert and examine his ambivalence
about such a conversion, given his close family ties to relatives in Prague, all of whom retained
their Jewish allegiance. The paper will explore the curiosity of Moscheles’ never disavowing
his Jewish origins, specifically examine his correspondence with Felix Mendlessohn housed in
an archive at the University of Leeds and published by Ignaz’s son in 1888, as well as his own
diary entries and correspondence, co-edited and published posthumously by his wife, Charlotte.
Using Moscheles as a case study, I will reflect on the utility and consequences, both good and
bad, of conversion for Jewish composers and musicians in a period of supposed enlightenment
that was perhaps not so enlightened.
Richard Erkens (Istituto Storico Germanico, Rome/Associazione per il musicista
Alberto Franchetti, Reggio Emilia)
Compositore, personalità eminente, ebreo. Influssi culturali ebraici sulla carriera
artistica di Alberto Franchetti
Noto come il ‘Meyerbeer d’Italia’, Alberto Franchetti (1860-1942) fu uno dei
più conosciuti compositori della ‘giovane scuola’ italiana grazie ai suoi successi operistici
internazionali di Asrael (1888) e Germania (1902). Il soprannome menzionato non si riferisce
solo al suo grand opéra italiano Cristoforo Colombo (1892), ma anche – e in primo luogo – alla
sua ascendenza dalle famiglie ebraiche Franchetti e Rothschild. Contro le aspettative del padre, il
barone Raimondo Franchetti, il figlio maggiore Alberto non subentrò agli affari paternali molto
ramificati e fiorenti, bensì coltivò la sua passione per la musica fino a un livello professionale: gli
anni di studio in Germania lo avevano reso capace di iniziare una carriera artistica apprezzabile
che si svolse all’interno del cosiddetto lungo Ottocento. Anche se la sua produzione operistica
basterebbe a motivare la sua riscoperta musicologica, Franchetti fu un’eminente personalità
dell’epoca anteriore alla Prima guerra mondiale anche grazie al suo enorme patrimonio e alla
sua personalità. Come uno dei primi conducenti d’auto italiani – come pilota egli presentava gli
ultimi modelli delle vetture a gare automobilistiche – Franchetti si fece grandi titoli, ma non solo
in senso positivo: il suo divorzio, i debiti di gioco crescenti e non sempre assolti dal padre, i duelli
d’onori, fecero sì che Franchetti dovette confrontarsi con polemiche e critiche (non limitate
all’ambito italiano), cercando di fondere la sua identità di compositore con il personaggio
nobile, ricchissimo, ebreo. Sebbene Franchetti avesse lavorato tanto per far rappresentare le sue
opere liriche, gli anni di successo si limitarono ai decenni 1920-1930. Negli ultimi anni della
sua vita fu costretto a vivere da vicino il varo delle leggi razziali da parte del fascismo italiano
(1938), fatto che rese impossibile la rappresentazione delle sue opere. Lo stimato compositore,
rappresentante di una società anteguerra, venne seppellito al cimitero ebraico di Viareggio senza
elogi funebri nel 1942. La ricerca sul compositore Franchetti deve affrontare la mancanza di
una biografia completa, sia per quanto riguarda la famiglia sia per il compositore stesso (anche
se la biografia di Valeria Isacchini del 2010 sull’esploratore Raimondo Franchetti, figlio del
compositore, ne è una notevole eccezione). Rarissimi sono i saggi sui singoli aspetti biografici,
che si basano soprattutto sulle lettere conservate nell’archivio privato della famiglia. Riferendosi
alle fonti biografiche accessibili e ripensando l’intera produzione operistica franchettiana, la
presente relazione tenta di fare chiarezza sugli influssi della cultura ebraica sulla carriera artistica
di Franchetti, domandandosi fino a che punto l’identità ebraica di Franchetti sia accertabile e
determinante, sia per l’artista che per l’uomo.
Paolo Giorgi (Biblioteca Panizzi, Reggio Emilia/Associazione per il musicista
Alberto Franchetti, Reggio Emilia)
Intrecci giudaico-cristiani nei libretti per opera del secondo Ottocento: il caso di
Reggio Emilia
Uno dei temi più affascinanti della storiografia ottocentesca (non soltanto musicale)
connessa alla questione ebraica in ambito italiano riguarda le complesse dinamiche di
integrazione e innesto degli elementi fondanti della cultura ebraica nell’identità della neonata
Italia. Apparentemente legata sin dalle origini soltanto alla religione cristiana, l’idea di
sentimento unitario di una cultura identitaria italiana viene ormai da diversi anni sempre più
decostruita e rivista dalla critica, alla luce di nuove e molteplici prospettive disciplinari. Una
delle prospettive più inaspettatamente utili in questa indagine prende spunto dalla penetrazione
dell’influsso del melodramma operistico, e in particolare di quello relativo alla librettistica che
pone al centro elementi religiosi, spirituali o teologici. Oltre al caso macroscopicamente più
noto del Mefistofele di Arrigo Boito, la produzione lirica ottocentesca è piuttosto ricca di
titoli (oggi sicuramente molto meno conosciuti) che mostrano la compresenza di elementi
provenienti da diverse fedi religiose, compresenza che spesso si rivela essere vero e proprio
sincretismo culturale, reso tale proprio grazie all’elemento musicale. La presente relazione si
concentrerà sul caso specifico della città di Reggio Emilia, sede fin dal Cinquecento di una
delle più grandi comunità ebraiche del nord Italia: inevitabile dunque che in questo contesto
la presenza e la rappresentazione di personaggi e figure ebraiche all’interno del sistema di
produzione culturale, teatrale e musicale della città fosse molto frequente. Nell’arco temporale
che vede la trasformazione di Reggio da sede del Ducato degli Este a municipalità italiana
(quindi nell’intorno temporale dell’unità d’Italia), i teatri cittadini vedono affacciarsi sulle
scene una ricca di spettacoli lirici con libretti che affrontano tematiche religiose (sia prime
assolute, sia esecuzioni di opere nate altrove): verrà analizzata in particolare la produzione
lirica che va dalle prime opere di Achille Peri degli anni ’50 (I fidanzati, Giuditta, Orfano
e Diavolo) alla circolazione di opere di Halévy e Meyerbeer negli anni ’70, fino all’Asrael
con musica di Alberto Franchetti del 1888. La presenza di una storica comunità ebraica con
molti membri attivi anche nella gestione culturale della città, combinata con una notevole
abbondanza di teatri attivi in campo lirico e musicale, rende Reggio Emilia un osservatorio
privilegiato per osservare alcune dinamiche di integrazione reciproca: in questo percorso critico
si tenterà di mostrare come la progressiva risemantizzazione di elementi culturali tipicamente
ebraici all’interno di una sensibilità più genericamente ‘italiana’ sia stata veicolata nel corso
del secondo Ottocento anche grazie ad alcune specificità del linguaggio musicale operistico.
Ivana Gortan-Carlin (Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, Croatia, Dpt. of
Educational Sciences)
La produzione musicale dei compositori ebraici sul territorio della regione
istriana nel xix secolo
Nel documento numero 5329 del 1942, rilasciato dal Ministero dell’insegnamento
pubblico dello Stato Indipendente di Croazia, trovato nel corpus archivistico del compositore
Slavko Zlatić all’Archivio Nazionale di Pisino, viene riportato un elenco di compositori ebrei.
Trattasi di una richiesta a non eseguire e non usare opere di tali compositori nello studio.
Sulla traccia dell’elenco in questione in questo saggio viene riportata la ricerca di quanto e
dove la musica dei compositori ebrei veniva eseguita o insegnata sul territorio della Regione
istriana nel xix secolo, precisamente dal 1848 fino all’inizio della Prima guerra mondiale. Nel
corso del xix secolo, sotto il dominio austriaco, in Istria vivono tre nazioni di maggioranza:
italiani, slavi (croati, sloveni) e tedeschi. Le città cominciano a svilupparsi e a rafforzarsi
economicamente solo nella seconda metà del xix secolo, quando Pola divenne il principale
porto militare della Monarchia asburgica (1848). Con il numero crescente di popolazione
nelle città aumenta anche l’interesse per la cultura. Da allora, è possibile seguire l’attività
musicale in Istria. La costruzione dei teatri a Pola, a Parenzo, a Pisino e di grandi sale come
quella di Marina-Casino a Pola offrono la possibilità di organizzare concerti, opere, operette
e balli in cui si riproducevano anche musiche dei compositori ebrei riconosciuti importanti
in quel periodo, o le cui opere erano ritenute particolarmente popolari. Oltre all’esecuzione
musicale nelle sale da concerto e nei teatri, le opere dei compositori ebrei si ritrovano anche
nei programmi della Società filarmonica, delle bande di ottoni cittadine ed erano anche
incluse nella parte obbligatoria del programma educativo delle scuole di musica, ad esempio
nella Scuola Accademica di musica di Pola. Nel saggio, mediante questa ricerca, si tende a
precisare quali compositori ebrei erano conosciuti in Istria nel corso del xix secolo.
Golan Gur (University of Cambridge)
«Die alten Gesänge im Geiste unserer Zeit»: Sulzer, Lewandowski and the Politics
of Assimilation in Jewish Liturgical Music
No other social process and event shaped the life and culture of Jews living in Europe
during the nineteenth century as the wake of emancipation and assimilation. Having
received equal rights in the aftermath of the French Revolution, Jews were now able, at
least nominally, to pursue professional paths reserved until then only to the predominantly
Christian population. It was not before long that composers and musicians of Jewish decent
such as Felix Mendelssohn, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Ferdinand Hiller rose to prominence in the
musical life of Europe and worldwide. Active in the cosmopolitan scene of bourgeois concert
halls, the life and work of these composers could hardly have been imaginable without the
success of assimilation. Less apparent, however, is the impact of the cultural assimilation of
Jews on synagogue music which has often been construed as exclusively Jewish phenomenon.
My paper examines the implications of Jewish assimilation for the development of Jewish
liturgical music during the nineteenth century. The paper focuses on the work of two
major musical figures in the history of Jewish music: Salomon Sulzer (1804-1890) and
Louis Lewandowski (1821-1894). The two were not only among the most highly regarded
synagogue musicians of their time but also important reformers whose musical and liturgical
innovations in Vienna and Berlin revitalised Jewish music in the German-speaking world. At
the same time, their reforms gave rise to various counter reactions and controversies, both
within and outside the Jewish community. In my paper, I situated the work and reception
of Sulzer and Lewandowski in the context of the politics and culture of assimilation while
exploring issues of acculturation, Jewish identity, and anti-Semitism.
Diana R. Hallman (University of Kentucky, KY)
Fromental Halévy and the “Jewish Question” at the Paris Opéra
With the “emancipation” of French Jews in 1791 and Napoléon’s establishment of
the Consistoire israélite and Grand Sanhédrin in 1806-1808 came a host of socio-political
reconfigurations of Jewish citizenry within the French nation. An active discourse related
to the “Jewish question”, addressing ideas of Jewish acculturation or assimilation versus
Jewish separatism, emerged in the nineteenth century within the general press, governmental
debates, and Jewish publications such as L’Israélite français (1817-1819). Consideration of the
“Jewish question” also gradually made its way into French literature and theater, resonating
with themes and representations found in Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe (1820), a master text that
addressed «the relation between national identity and alien populations» (Michael Ragussis,
Figures of Conversion: “The Jewish Question” and English National Identity, Duke University
Press, 1995, p. 90). One highly successful opera that examined contemporary ideas about
Jewish régéneration and fusion, as it symbolically portrayed Jewish characters as representatives
of a new, more inclusive France, was the 1835 French grand opéra, La Juive, written for the
Paris Opéra by French Jewish composer Fromental Halévy and librettist Eugène Scribe. Two
later operas by Halévy also turned to Jewish themes and legends: Le Juif errant, first performed
at the Paris Opéra in 1852, and Noé, completed after the composer’s death by his son-in-law
and former student Georges Bizet. Drawing upon a range of primary sources (including letters,
memoirs, and nineteenth-century periodicals), I will first discuss ways in which Fromental
Halévy (1799-1862), as a member of the first generation of educated, post-emancipation
French Jews, confronted the “Jewish question” in his own life, as grounded in the dual ideals
of “faith and country” transmitted by his father Élie Halévy (a Talmudic scholar, translator
for the Consistoire central de Paris, and co-founder of L’Israélite français) and in relation to
reformist views and actions of his brother Léon Halévy and other Jewish contemporaries –
in addition to creating plays that featured Jewish characters and contributing to the libretto
of La Juive, Léon Halévy wrote the books Résumé de l’histoire des juifs anciens (Paris, 1825)
and Résumé de l’histoire des juifs modernes (Paris, 1828). Building on my previous work on
La Juive and my research of original music and libretto manuscripts and Opéra documents
at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and Archives Nationales, I will then consider ways
in which the composer overtly and discreetly addressed the “Jewish question” and the tragic
history of European Jews in selected works for the Paris Opéra. I will focus on Halévy’s
musical-dramatic portrayal of the Jewish-Christian conflict and socio-religious intolerance
that permeates La Juive, as well as his depiction of the dual identity of Rachel, the religious
and stereotyped elements of Éléazar’s characterization, and the Act ii seder. Secondarily, I
will consider the metaphorical significance of Le Juif errant and Noé and will also suggest
that Charles vi (1843), despite its patriotic cast and lack of Jewish references, holds the 1394
expulsion of the Jews by the “mad king” Charles vi as veiled subtext.
Caroline Helton (University of Michigan, MI, School of Music, Theatre & Dance)
Intersection and Inspiration: Johannes Brahms and His Influence on the Jewish
Composers Robert Kahn and Leone Sinigaglia
This talk will focus on the lives and vocal works of the little-known Jewish composers
Robert Kahn (1865-1951) and Leone Sinigaglia (1868-1944), who both came into contact
with Johannes Brahms in Vienna in the 1890s, and will follow the threads of Brahms’ musical
influence in their songs. Robert Kahn was a successful composer, teacher, conductor and
collaborative pianist, and, much like Brahms, his compositions are dominated by chamber
music, piano compositions, songs and choral works. As a young man Kahn was able to meet
and impress the great composer, and the two spent a few years in close contact toward the end
of Brahms’ life. Leone Sinigaglia, an accomplished, European composer and renowned expert
on Italian mountains and mountain climbing, studied in Vienna with Eusebius Mandyczewski
on the recommendation of the great composer, and was heavily influenced by the traditions
of German Lied and the folk song settings of Brahms and Dvořak, with whom Sinigaglia
also studied. Both Kahn and Sinigaglia composed in the more conservative style of Brahms,
even while their contemporaries were experimenting with expanded harmonic vocabularies,
looser formal structures and more innovative instrumental groupings. The choice of song
composition in itself is also conservative, with its intimate intermingling of lyric poetry set
to music, hearkening back to the Hausmusik tradition that spanned the 19th century. Most of
the songs in this study were composed in the 1890s, but even songs that Kahn and Sinigaglia
composed later retained the primacy of functional harmony, balanced formal structure and
beautiful melodies to communicate the emotional content the poetry. Vocal repertoire from
the 19th century still dominates song recitals today, so perhaps now is the time to introduce
these rediscovered musical gems to modern audiences alongside the well-known giants of the
late Romantic period.
Daniela Iotti (Istituto di alta formazione musicale Conservatorio ‘Claudio
Monteverdi’, Bolzano/Associazione per il musicista Alberto Franchetti, Reggio Emilia):
Una lunga dinastia musicale dai Rothschild ai Franchetti
A partire dalla figura di Alberto Franchetti (1860-1942), l’intervento prende in
considerazione il ruolo svolto dalla madre Sara Luisa Rothschild nella formazione musicale del
figlio, individuando una linea femminile di personalità musicali che discende dall’Ottocento
lungo la linea della famiglia Rothschild. Sara Luisa (1834-1924), oltre al patrimonio di una tra
le più potenti famiglie di banchieri del tempo, con ramificazioni in tutta Europa, porta in dote
ai Franchetti un interesse e un amore per la musica, frutto di una famigliarità di lunga data. Se
Alberto è da considerare la personalità musicale più importante ed entrata a far parte a tutto
diritto della storia della musica, l’influenza di Sara Luisa in campo musicale fu determinante
anche per il terzogenito Giorgio (1865-1922), musicista (compositore e pianista) di buon
livello, all’interno di un côté musicale tutt’altro che marginale, sebbene coltivato da amatore.
Risalendo lungo questa linea femminile, oltre a Sara Luisa, allieva di Liszt e buona pianista
dilettante, si incontrano la sorella Mathilde Hannah, di due anni maggiore (1832-1924),
senz’altro la personalità più rilevante, musicista e compositrice, autrice di pregevoli Lieder
e di musica da camera, a sua volta allieva, a quindici anni, di Chopin; quindi la madre,
Charlotte, che ebbe senz’altro un ruolo fondamentale nell’incoraggiare due delle sue figlie agli
studi musicali. Parigi poi ci porta al centro di altri intrecci che vedono ancora i Rothschild
protagonisti della vita culturale della capitale con spiccati interessi in campo musicale. Un’altra
Charlotte, Nathaniel de Rothschild (Parigi 1824-1899), cugina di primo grado di Sara Luisa
e Mathilde, più giovani di una decina d’anni, è al centro della vita musicale della Parigi
degli anni Trenta e Quaranta. Cresciuta nei salotti promossi dalla sua famiglia fu a sua volta,
ancor prima di Mathilde, allieva di Chopin nel 1941; un rapporto tutt’altro che occasionale,
considerato che il musicista polacco rimase legato all’allieva da un rapporto di profonda
amicizia e riconoscenza nei confronti della famiglia, tanto da dedicarle, probabilmente come
regalo di nozze, la Ballata n. 4, Op. 52, in Fa minore e qualche anno più tardi, nel 1847, il
Valzer in Do diesis minore, Op. 64, n. 2, dediche riscontrabili nelle prime edizioni a stampa di
queste opere. Mathilde Hannah, oltre che per l’attività compositiva, si distinse per numerose
attività filantropiche (fondazioni di ospedali, orfanatrofi, case di riposo) e culturali (progetti
di ricerca per l’Università di Heidelberg, fondazione di biblioteche, collezioni d’arte), molte a
sostegno della cultura ebraica come la costruzione della Sinagoga a Königstein, una delle sue
residenze, e la fondazione del Museo ebraico. La sua produzione musicale, quantitativamente
limitata ma di buon livello, si esprime prevalentemente in ambito liederistico e cameristico.
Come ultimo anello di questa lunga catena, il soprano, Charlotte Henriette de Rothschild,
nata nel 1955, pronipote di Mathilde e interprete di molti suoi Lieder.
Tamara Jurkić Sviben (University of Zagreb, Croatia, Faculty of Teacher Education)
Reverberations of Reform Jewish Service in Synagogue Music of Northern
Croatia on the End of the 19th Century and First Part of the 20th Century
In the nineteenth century Reform Movement in Judaism, which has developed
under the influence of Enlightenment thought in Europe and of Haskalah, has brought
about big changes in the performance of synagogue service and music as its component part.
Instruments, choir and organ were reintroduced into the synagogue service. In the latter
part of the nineteenth century on the territory of northern Croatia, then part of AustroHungarian Empire, synagogues accommodating reform Jewish service were built (neological
direction). Each of them had an organ and a choir which participated in the service together
with the cantor (hazzan). Croatian composer and a violinist Antun Schwarz (1823-1891),
studied cantorial singing at the school of Salomon Sulzer (1804-1890) in Vienna. Following
his return to his native Zagreb he brought the spirit of reform Jewishness to the Zagreb
Jewish community, and to Croatian culture of the day. In individual synagogues music
sheets with reformed synagogue tunes have been preserved, such as the collections of cantors
Joseph Weissman (1872-1941), Isak Hendel (1883-1944), Bernard Grüner (1888-1955)
and David Meisel (1885-1941). Those testify to the existence of reformed service music in
Croatian synagogues before the beginning of Second World War, when most of the cantors,
synagogues and music sheets disappeared in the Holocaust. The paper will discuss examples
of music scores with tunes by Salamon Sulzer (Shir Zion), Louis Lewandowski, Samuel
Naumbourg, and Croatian cantors who composed music for synagogue service along the lines
of nineteenth-century European cantors, thus positioning Croatian Jewish musical heritage
within the context of European cultural heritage of the late nineteenth and the beginning of
the twentieth century.
Mark Kligman (UCLA – University of California, Los Angeles, CA)
Isaac Offenbach: Cantorial Artistry in the Early 19th Century
Isaac Offenbach (1779-1850) was a cantor in Cologne, and father of Jacques
Offenbach. 56 of his manuscripts are in Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion
(HUC-JIR) library in New York. From the early 1800s until the late 1840s, as documented in
his manuscripts, Offenbach’s cantorial music shows the increasing influence of European art
music in his synagogue music. The Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) of the late 18th into the
19th century was a profound change in Jewish life manifesting in Jewish practice and belief.
The influences of European art music were seen as a way to bring synagogue musical life into
the modern era. At the same time, cantors worked to retain tradition. The ongoing dialogue
of innovation and tradition led to a new artistry in synagogue music. This presentation will
focus on the works of Isaac Offenbach showing the range of his style and the influences. Some
of his Lecha Dodi melodies are in a dance-style while his cantorial recitatives show a creative
artistry of vocal style and form. In this presentation the works of similar composers in the era,
whose music is found in the Eduard Birnbaum collection (*see note below) such as Israel Lovy
and Shlomo Friede. Images of the manuscripts and recordings will be provided. The dawn of
Jewish music modernity from the late 18th to the early 19th centuries in synagogue music is an
interesting marker for other significant developments.
* Eduard Birnbaum (1855-1920) was a cantor and musicologist. Born in Cracow, Birnbaum succeeded
Hirsch Weintraub as Oberkantor in Königsberg, in 1879 and remained as cantor until his death. Through the years
Birnbaum amassed Jewish liturgical manuscripts and original materials that documented the history of liturgical
music on an expansive scale. The collection contains thousands of cantorial music manuscripts from 1770-1920,
archival material and Birnbaum’s own notes and materials. In 1922 Hebrew Union College acquired the collected
and then hired A. Z. Idelsohn to study the material. This collection is stored in the rare bookroom in the Klau
Library at HUC-JIR in Cincinnati. The vast music collection of HUC-JIR contains over 100,000 items comprised
of manuscripts, printed volumes and archival material. With the combined holdings of the Birnbaum Collection
in Cincinnati and the Offenbach collection in New York, HUC-JIR owns over 60% of all known Jewish liturgical
music prior to 1840.
César Leal (Sewanee University of the South, TN)
Sponsoring and Constructing Modernism: Jewish Patronage, Entrepreneurs, and
Cultural Mediation in Paris during Fin-de-siècle
During the fin-de-siècle the professional activities of the successful Parisian impresario
included artistic management, event organization and promotion, and music publishing.
Although scholars of fin-de-siècle Paris such as Huebner, Pasler, Fauser, and Garrafola have
addressed the significance of the impresario as an artist’s manager, promoter, and event
organizer, a full exploration of the impact of his role as music publisher has not been
undertaken to date. This paper examines the impact of Jewish impresario Gabriel Astruc
(1864-1938) on the construction of the Parisian musical and cultural landscape through his
activities as artist’s manager, entrepreneur, theater director, playwright, and music publisher.
Astruc’s publication of the String Quartet in F by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) in 1904
represented the beginning of his own publishing house, La Sóciété Musicale. Between 1904
and 1910, Astruc’s company published more than 100 original compositions in a wide variety
of genres and styles, as revealed in unstudied documents found at the Archives Nationales
(Fonds Gabriel Astruc) on which my research is built. Through the activities of his father,
the recognized Rabbi and funding member of the Alliance Israélite Universelle Élie-Aristide
Astruc (1831-1905), Gabriel Astruc established closed connections with members associated
with the Jewish Parisian upper class. Families such as the Camondo, Rothschild, Vanderbilt,
Deutsch de la Meurthe, became steady supporters for most of Astruc’s large-scale projects such
as the commission and publication of numerous works associated with the avant-garde, the
construction of the Theatre des Champs-Élysées, and all the musical events that belonged to
la Grande Saison de Paris. Additionally, Jewish patronage, thought Astruc’s leadership, proved
key in the creation of the dynamic artistic exchange between Europe and the Americas of the
first decade of the twentieth century. The active exchange of performers, composers, musical
editions, and other artists characterized such relationship. The first part of this paper focuses
on the mechanisms and process thorough which Astruc obtained and maintained the support
of the Jewish community in Paris and abroad. It addresses the international scope of Astruc’s
activities and his ability to create a sense of global aesthetic identity with which his Jewish
sponsors resonated. The second section examines music publishing and event organization as
the main mechanisms Astruc used to promote different aesthetics. It addresses the publication
of a significant amount of compositions by Jewish members of the Parisian haute société such as
Isaac de Camondo and Henri Deutsch who, although not a prominent composer, supported
financially many of Astruc’s large-scale projects. This section also explains the international
aesthetic dialogue enabled by the multiple styles and genres published by La Société Musicale,
which included Waltzes, and Mélodies as well as other genres commonly associated with the
avant-garde movement. Through the perspective of Astruc as a Jewish impresario who created
a system of Jewish patronage, this paper will offer a new perspective to existing narratives that
discussed the significance of the interaction of multiple genres in shaping the Parisian musical
scene of the time.
Mia Kuritzén Löwengart (Uppsala University, Department of History)
Jewish Contribution to the Development of Stockholm’s Public Concert Life
This paper describes the nature of the Jewish contribution to the development of
Stockholm’s public music life in the 19th century as well as to the establishment of high
cultural music institutions by the turn of the 20th century. It argues that individuals belonging
to Stockholm’s Jewish elite played an essential role for this development, and that Jewish efforts
and financial support were crucial for the establishment of a symphony orchestra as well as
of a concert hall. Both in the case of the symphony orchestra and of the concert hall, Jewish
individuals took on the task of raising the money, and in both cases Jewish donations formed
the nucleus of the projects. Moreover, Jewish social networks, especially family networks, were
of particular importance for raising the funds necessary for both these institutions to come to
fruition, and Jews were overrepresented among donors of large gifts among the contributors
to the concert hall. Why was this the case? Why did Jewish individuals play a crucial role
both as driving forces and fund-raisers and as donors? After a brief account of some of the
characteristics of Stockholm’s Jewish elite this paper emphasizes the importance of Swedish
Jewish composers who, after having studied in Leipzig at Felix Mendelssohn’s Hochschule für
Musik und Theater and with experiences from performing in orchestras in Germany, returned
home determined to transform Swedish public concert life. It then moves in to case studies,
which helps us better understand the nature of Jewish philanthropic contributions to the
establishment of public concert institutions in Stockholm, and which cast light on the deeper
motives that impelled members of the Jewish community, professional musicians and amateur
music-lovers alike to make such substantial contributions to the cultural life in their city.
Rachel Orzech (Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne/
University of Rouen)
Hearing Jewishness? The Parisian reception of Halévy’s La Juive
Premiered in Paris during a period when Jews were in the process of negotiating their
integration into French society, Fromental Halévy’s La Juive tells a story of medieval JewishChristian conflict. Diana Hallman’s extensive study into the political, social and musical
context of Halévy’s opera has demonstrated that La Juive offers insight into attitudes toward
French Jewish communities of the period and serves as a critique of contemporary political
and religious institutions. Yet few scholars have paid attention to the reception of the work
at its premiere at the Paris Opéra in 1835. Given the Jewish origins of the composer and
the way in which the opera grapples with pertinent issues such as assimilation, integration,
and religious conflict, it seems necessary to ask: how did Parisian critics respond to aspects
of Jewishness in La Juive? Did they make connections between the opera’s medieval Jews
and the Parisian Jews of the nineteenth century? Were they conscious of Halévy’s Jewish
background and did they view this as being influential on his composition? Did they hear
any Jewishness in the music? In this paper I will argue that although critics made almost no
explicit connection between the operatic plot and nineteenth-century Paris, they found other
ways of commenting on Jewishness in the opera, and of relating this to issues of Jewishness
in nineteenth-century Paris. I will also suggest that in their reviews of La Juive, critics ‘heard’
Halévy’s music as being most successful when it was ‘Jewish’. Drawing on the scholarship of
a number of musicologists who have argued that political messages, thinly veiled by historical
plots, were an essential feature of the grand opéra genre, I will show that La Juive was indeed
received as a social and political commentary by the critics of its premiere. In particular, by
investigating responses to Jewishness in the opera, we can learn something about attitudes to
Jews and their place in 1830s Paris.
Danielle Padley (University of Cambridge) – Susan Wollenberg (University of Oxford)
Charles Garland Verrinder, First Ever Synagogue Organist in Britain
Charles Garland Verrinder can be counted as a major figure in Anglo-Jewish liturgical
music during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Evidently held in high regard in
his own time, he has not been well enough recognized latterly other than among a close circle
of those involved with music for synagogue worship, largely within the Reform tradition.
His name surfaced during research on the history of music in Oxford (he held the degree of
BMus Oxon and later was awarded the Lambeth DMus). Uniquely among Oxford musical
graduates in the nineteenth century, who were typically from the ranks of church organists,
Verrinder’s personal details preserved in the University archives record his activity not only
as a church organist with a background in that tradition (he was a chorister of Salisbury
Cathedral, and pupil of George Elvey, organist of St George’s Chapel, Windsor) but also
as organist of the London Reform synagogue. Verrinder was in fact the first ever synagogue
organist in Britain, while also continuing to fulfil his duties as organist for several churches.
From 1859 when he was appointed at the West London Synagogue [WLS] he pioneered
and developed the role of the organ and choral music within the newly established Reform
liturgy. Extensive archival holdings (including committee papers and correspondence between
Verrinder and the synagogue authorities) deposited by the WLS in the Anglo-Jewish Archive,
University of Southampton, document Verrinder’s work for the synagogue over the 45 years
of his service to that institution. His activities also drew the attention of the contemporary
press, with a series of notices in the Musical Times, and regular mention in the Jewish Chronicle
[JC], yielding much valuable information about his work. He learnt Hebrew in order better
to meet the needs of his work for the WLS, and developed the role of the synagogue choir in
the services, both regular (Sabbaths and festivals) and for special occasions such as anniversary
celebrations. He composed and arranged music for the synagogue services, collaborating
with Charles Kensington Salaman on a series of volumes published by Novello. Altogether
Verrinder’s was a remarkable and substantial contribution to this new and flourishing area of
Jewish musical culture in Victorian and early Edwardian London. Summing up Verrinder’s
career as synagogue organist, the writer of his obituary in the JC observed: «It is a remarkable
fact that during the whole forty-five years he held office he never missed a service, and was
never unpunctual for an appointment. Even when special services were held on Sundays
which clashed with his duties elsewhere, the synagogue always came first […]. From the
time of his appointment at the WLS, Dr. Verrinder threw himself into the duties of his office
with indefatigable zeal. They became the absorbing passion of his life». Our paper examines
Verrinder’s character and work, paying detailed attention to his music and his activities at
the WLS (which included the introduction of female singers to the choir), and assessing his
lasting influence on the repertoire and practice of Reform liturgy.
Yuval Rabin (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)
Hermann Zvi Bermann – A Combination of Functional Synagogue-Music, and
High Artistic Aim
Hermann Zvi Bermann was born in Toltschin, near Odessa, in 1845, to an observant
poor family. Apparently he was a very talented singer, already as a childe. As much as we know
today, he made his living for a while as a Meshorer (accompanying singer to the Chazan), which
made him travel form town to town. Due to his beautiful voice, an unknown (nowadays)
donator paid so that the 18 years old singer will study music in a serious manner in the St.
Petersburg Conservatory, under the direction of Anton Rubinstein. Apparently those years
left a remarkable sign on the great musician. After his studies he worked in secondary jobs
as Chazan, first in Libau and then in Budapest. When he was 30, he was appointed as the
main Chazan of Leipa (Bohemian), where he also conducted the choir. The Congregation in
Leipa had about 600 people when Bermann came there, and rapidly diminished. It was clear
Ashkenazy custom in both: the Nussach (text and music) as well as pronunciation (of south
Germany). From his music, one can see a very unique relation to the pray. On the one hand
his music is aimed to make the congregation feel comfortable and encourage it to participate
in the prayer (in contrary for instance to Beer, but also to some of the Music by Sulzer or
Lewandowski). On the other hand, Bermann’s music shows a clear madrigalistic conception
of word-painting. Another interesting fact by Bermann’s music is the combination of Reform
phenomena (as the use of the organ) together with a strict maintaining all the orthodox
prayer. Bermann’s financial situation, allowed him to publish his music first when he was 65.
The timing war miserable: it was the beginning of the world war (one), in a small province of
the falling apart Austro-Hungarian Empire. Five years later he died. Leipa’s congregation was
already very small at that time. His children were not observant, and had other concerns then
the music of their father. His great music was practically vanished, even though the scores exist
in some libraries. His music certainly deserves to be performed as part of the Jewish canon.
Siegwart Reichwald (Converse College, SC)
The Gospel According to Mendelssohn: Spiritual Meaning and Liturgical
Function in Mendelssohn’s Three Motets, Op. 39
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s identity has been at the center of many debates about
Judaism, Christianity, and even Pietism. Over the years various branches of Judaism and
Christianity have shown an affinity toward Mendelssohn, yet at other times have strongly
disavowed his allegiance to their beliefs. While recent scholarship has settled on Mendelssohn
as the Lutheran/Reformed Bürger, the impact of his Jewish heritage on his identity has once
again been hotly debated. With all of these debates, we try fit Mendelssohn into a box in order
to know what to think about him and how to approach his music. I hope to do the opposite
by showing that Mendelssohn had a very complex faith experience that does not align neatly
with any particular faith tradition. Musically, his major choral works, particularly his oratorios,
have been at the center of this discussion, while his smaller works have received little or no
attention. Yet these occasional works are the clearest signposts of the composer’s musical and
spiritual development. On the surface, Mendelssohn’s Three Motets, Op. 39 are a rather quaint
musical response to his experiences as the ‘barbaro tedesco’ with the singing nuns at Trinità
dei Monti in Rome. Not being able to see the nuns, but only hear their beautiful voices
intoning the liturgy, the young composer decided to write music fitting for the occasion and
to dedicate the motets to the nuns. Six years later, when Mendelssohn revised these motets for
publication, he must have put much thought into their deeper meaning. A careful look at the
motet texts reveals an overarching narrative that explores the life, death, and resurrection of
Christ through the use of three key liturgical texts. Surprisingly, the second motet references
Psalm 113, the first of the six Hallel Psalms, to be sung during the Feast of Passover. Its
Jewish context is brought into sharper focus with Mendelssohn’s translation of Laudate pueri
as Ihr Kinder Israel – a translation not found in his Lutherbibel. While there is no obvious
musical thread that connects the three motets motivically, the key scheme and other stylistic
elements of the motets nevertheless support a cyclical interpretation. Mendelssohn’s Op. 39
offers a fascinating musical and spiritual journey of a searching soul that finds answers in
the redemptive work of Jesus – a journey that seems to run parallel to the composer’s own
complex background and spiritual experiences. My reading of this motet cycle offers fresh
insights not only into Mendelssohn’s self-identity but also his theology. At the heart of this
theology is a complex Christology that is a reflection of a three-dimensional identity that
seems more realistic than our flat and seemingly incompatible projections of Mendelssohn as
the Jew, the Lutheran, the German, the musician.
Jesse Rosenberg (Northwestern University, IL)
Samuele Levi’s Giuditta (1844): Jewish Heroine or Figure of the Risorgimento?
Notes on the Philo-Judaic Moment of 19th-Century Italian Opera
Of the roughly 150 Italian operas from 1800 to the present containing Jewish
characters, only a small portion were created by Jewish librettists or composers. Samuele
Levi’s Giuditta (Venice 1844), the earliest surviving Italian opera about Jews by a Jew, thus
provides a useful point of entry into an exploration of Jewish identity in this genre. The task,
however, is beset by difficulties. The autograph score at the Fondazione Levi in Venice, the
sole surviving musical source for Giuditta, is incomplete, bristles with anomalies, while the
verbal text differs numerous details from the published libretto. The most serious challenges
are interpretive: given that the composer was a proud member of the Jewish community of
Venice, to what extent can the ancient Hebrew characters be understood as ‘Jewish’ in the
sense having significant continuity with modern Jews in Italy and elsewhere? Historically,
most dramatic works in the Western tradition on Old Testament subjects have fallen have
followed one of two different approaches: the typological, which interprets persons and events
of Hebrew scripture as prefiguring Christian revelation, and political allegory, with Hebrews
substituting for some collective entity of recent history, such as the Venetian Republic
in its victory over the Turks. In the context of early and mid-19th-century Italian opera,
largely owing to the celebrity (and surrounding mythology) of Verdi’s Nabucco, the standard
interpretation centers around the movement for Italian independence and unification; it
is in this manner exclusively that Giuditta has been treated by modern scholarship. But in
neither of these figurations were Jewish characters intended to be ‘Jews’ with which modern
Jews might identify, although many Italian Jews did so in any case. It is my contention that
precisely such an identification of ancient with modern Hebraic aspiration is suggested Levi’s
Giuditta. The composer’s proud identification with the Jewish community of Venice itself
provides a radically new context for understanding the Jewish characters of the story, despite
the fact that the librettist was a Gentile. A more indirect form of supporting evidence of the
Jewishness of Giuditta relates to other Italian operas of the 1830s and 1840s with philoJudaic elements: Pacini’s exactly contemporaneous L’Ebrea (February 1844, based on a highly
diluted version of Scribe’s libretto for Halévy’s La Juive); Peri’s Ester d’Engaddi (1843, libretto
by Cammarano after Pellico’s tragedy); and Nicolai’s Il Templario (1840, derived from Scott’s
novel Ivanhoe). The sympathetic modern Jews of these operas permit a new understanding of
the ancient ones in Levi’s Giuditta. Even the persistence of anti-Semitic tropes in other Italian
operas of the period, such as the scheming alchemist in Nini’s La marascialla d’Ancre (1839) or
the usurer in Coccia’s Il lago delle fate (1841) can illuminate Levi’s opera by contrast. Musical
analysis yields further insights into the Jewishness of Giuditta. Too often musicologists have
searched for Jewish elements in a composition by hunting for augmented seconds, oboe solos,
or other stereotypically exotic features. Such an approach fails to recognize that Italian Jews’
desire for emancipation typically arises from the opposite impulse: a vision not of particularity
or difference but of universality, a demand for equal treatment based on a common humanity.
Investigating the radically different diasporic context of German-Jewish liturgical music, Tina
Frühauf states that assimilation to the prevailing musical style can signify an affirmation,
rather than an abandonment, of Jewish identity. I will illustrate the validity of this paradoxical
insight by means of two musical examples from Levi’s opera, Judith’s duet with Holofernes in
Act i and her prayer in Act ii.
Alon Schab (University of Haifa, Israel) – David Rees (Munich Synagogue Choir)
The Sulzerian Reform and the Recently Rediscovered ‘Israeliten’ Manuscript
Recently, the authors discovered in the Jewish community of Munich a music
manuscript, ‘Israeliten’, which now resides in the Bavarian State Library. Containing works by
the Viennese cantor Salomon Sulzer and non-Jewish Viennese composers, this bound collection
appears to be one of the early copies of Sulzer’s compendium, Schir Zion, that circulated
in German-speaking Jewish communities in handwritten copies. The new manuscript bears
evidence of a hitherto unnoticed collaboration, if not friendship, between Sulzer and David
Hessel, son of the first rabbi of Munich in the modern period, during the earliest years of the
official Vienna and Munich Jewish communities. Indeed, ‘Israeliten’ appears to have been a
founding document of the Munich synagogue choir, which was established by Meir Kohn in
1832. Music in the synagogue played a key role in shaping and communicating a new, public
Jewish identity. At the beginning of this process, the Jewish communities of both Munich and
Vienna both worked locally with prominent gentile composers. The leading Jewish musicians
of these communities, Kohn and Sulzer, respectively, soon became rivals rushing to claim the
prize of publishing the world’s first volume of modern synagogue music. In our paper, we
show how the contents and unique aspects of the ‘Israeliten’ manuscript shed new light on the
contacts between Jewish and non-Jewish musicians and deepen our knowledge of a pivotal
moment in the development of Jewish sacral music.
Jeroen van Gessel (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
The Fruitless Quest for Recognition of the Jewish Composer Aaron Wolf Berlijn
(1817-1870)
Although his works have been completely forgotten, there is good reason to focus
attention on the career of the composer Aaron Wolf Berlijn (1817-1870), who spent his
entire life in Amsterdam. He combined an almost insatiable ambition as a composer with
an unwavering fidelity to his Jewish religion and in his own opinion that cost him a lot of
potential support. This contribution will focus on his attempts to bypass that lack of support.
One of these was soliciting the approval of composers of European fame and the protection
of European monarchs, and even the Pope, and publishing their favourable replies in the
local press. Another point of attention will be the piece Berlijn composed in memory of
Mendelssohn. Using the correspondence between Berlijn and his biographer, the Amsterdam
music historian Jacques Hartog, who was Jewish as well, this contribution will show that for
Berlijn and Hartog Mendelssohn was the example of what a Jewish composer might achieve
when he would be judged solely by his works.
Henri Vanhulst (Université libre de Bruxelles/Académie royale de Belgique)
Deux parcours de compositeurs contrastés : Abraham (Adolphe) Samuel et son
fils Eugène
Abraham Samuel (Liège, 1824 - Gand, 1898) fait des études musicales complètes
aux Conservatoires de Liège et de Bruxelles. Lauréat du Prix de Rome belge en 1845 avec
la cantate La vendetta, dont il signe le manuscrit du concours d’une devise empruntée au
Deutétonome, il fait un séjour d’études en Allemagne et en Italie. Admirateur de Berlioz, il lui
dédie son opéra-comique L’heure de la retraite. En 1860 Il est nommé professeur d’harmonie
pratique au Conservatoire de Bruxelles, où il se fait connaître comme un grand défenseur
de Wagner, s’opposant ainsi Fétis, le directeur de l’établissement. S’inspirant du modèle
parisien, il crée en 1865 il crée la Société des concerts populaires, où il fera exécuter quelques
ouvertures de Wagner et où il attire un public peu fortuné. Samuel a aussi une activité en tant
que critique musical dans la presse quotidienne et hebdomaire et ses collaborations révèlent
ses sympathies pour le libéralisme, comme le confirme son adhésion à la franc-maçonnerie.
Tout comme Fétis, Samuel est un fervent défenseur d’un art musical ‘belge’. Il compose des
œuvres à tendance patriotique et dirige 1869 le premier festival de musique classique organisé
par le gouvernement belge. Deux ans plus tard, il est nommé directeur du Conservatoire de
Gand. En 1895 Samuel se convertit au catholicisme. Il y donne une dimension artistique par
la composition de sa septième symphonie, Christus symphonie mystique, qui fait appel à un
chœur. Eugène Samuel (Bruxelles 1863 - Bruxelles 1942) est le fils d’Adolphe. Il reste fidèle
au judaïsme et pour marquer sa différence avec ses parents convertis, il adopte le nom SamuelHoleman, ajoutant le nom de famille de sa femme au sien. Il a fait ses études au Conservatoire
de Gand et a e eu carrière de compositeur, chef d’orchestre et pianiste. Auteur d’une étude sur
les gammes par tons entiers, son œuvre la plus connue est La jeune fille à la fenêtre (1890) pour
mezzo et orchestre de chambre qui fut exécutée notamment à Bruxelles et à Paris.
Benjamin Wolf (Regent’s University, London)
Lewandowski as a Man of His Times
The composer Louis Lewandowski (1821-1894) is best known as a composer
of synagogue music, and as one of the principal composers of the nineteenth-century
German Reform movement. His music continues to be performed in synagogues across
the world, while there is an annual choral festival dedicated to his music in Berlin. This
music is concentrated in two publications. The first, Kol Rinnah U’T’Fillah, is principally a
compilation of cantorial chant, though it contains some simple choral elements. The second,
Todah W’Simrah, contains much grander music for choir and organ. These publications reveal
a composer who was simultaneously steeped in the traditions of Ashkenazi chazzanut and
Western, classical composition, and who tried to marry these two traditions in a musical
expression of the philosophy of Reform Judaism. The result was music which included
cantorial chant, grand choral gestures, counterpoint, and a lyricism similar to that found in
the music of Mendelssohn. Yet Lewandowski was much more than a synagogue composer.
While relatively little is known of his biography, in part because of a lack of documentary
sources, our picture of Lewandowski can be considerably expanded and enhanced by a study
of his non-synagogue music, much of which remains unexplored and rarely performed. Such
an examination seems to reveal a man who was very much influenced by the political, social
and musical movements of his time. While his synagogue music reflects the political realities
of Jewish emancipation, his secular music reveals an engagement with German nationalism,
with wider instrumental traditions, and even with the traditions of lieder and operetta. A
song such as Hurrah! Die deutsche Fahne presents us with Lewandowski as a keen German
nationalist (an image that is reinforced by his proud use of the title königlich Musikdirector).
His Rhapsodie Hebraïque (op.34), meanwhile, shows parallels with composers such as Liszt
or Rubinstein, as Lewandowski incorporated the melodies of the Jewish people into a freeform rhapsody that was simultaneously nationalist and romantic in feel. His short, humorous
cantata, Eine Käfer-Hochzeit, reveals a willingness to use non-Jewish texts for purely secular
purposes, and to adopt the musical idiom of operetta. Meanwhile, his Zwei Trinklieder aus
alter Zeit show Lewandowski to have been a composer who was willing to combine his Jewish
heritage with the Western European heritage to which he also belonged, as he combines
Medieval Jewish poems with the musical traditions of German lieder. Through an examination
of works such as these, and a comparison with other, better-known Romantic composers, we
can see Lewandowski as a man of his times – an emancipated Jew who was simultaneously
engaged with his Jewish heritage, with contemporary politics and with the secular world of
nineteenth-century Europe.
MAIN LOCATIONS
1: Train Station (Stazione Termini)
2: Accademia Filarmonica Romana, Via Flaminia 118
3: Piazza Del Popolo (Metro stop and Taxi rank)
4: Piazza di Spagna (Metro stop and Taxi rank)
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Jewishness & the A rts:
Music and C omposers in 19 th-C entury Europe
Rome, Accademia Filarmonia Romana
13-15 October 2015
Organized by
Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini and Palazzetto Bru Zane
in collaboration with Ad Parnassum Journal
under the auspices of
Presidenza Assemblea Capitolina and Comunità Ebraica di Roma